Still Happening

Two Moms Reported to Child Services for False Positive Drug Tests from Poppy Seeds

Today, two women filed lawsuits against Garnet Health Medical Center alleging that the Middletown, New York, hospital drug tested them without their consent when they were giving birth. They both tested “presumptive positive” initially, but later tested negative — as did their newborns — and the false positives were the result of eating poppy seeds.

The women allege that hospital staff interfered with their ability to breastfeed, despite their newborns testing negative. The hospital also reported their unconfirmed, false positive results to the state, and child welfare authorities conducted unnecessary and invasive home visits. The suits allege that not only does Garnet Health conduct drug testing without informed consent, but it uses opiate testing thresholds far lower than the levels the federal government uses for workplace testing — 300 ng/mL versus 2,000 ng/ml — levels the government raised more than 20 years ago, specifically because of false positives.

This is truly unconscionable.

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12 Responses to Still Happening

  1. Servetus says:

    The poppy seed scandal in a Middletown, New York, hospital is a sad example of the miserable lives people face living in Prohibition Land. In places like Middletown, people are treated as subjects, not citizens. It’s why differing legal standards still exist for prosecuting crack and cocaine possession. The powers that claim the throne owe their existence and allegiance to willful misinterpretations of pharmaceutical science. They claim the stewardship of human rights laws only to alter or violate human rights at will. No one in Congress is unaware this is happening. It’s their doing, after all.

    Removing corruption from a government usually requires some kind of novel force. That’s why despots seek the ability to prosecute anyone for anything, no matter how trivial. Take that power away from them and it’s worse than taking candy from a baby. Not even Batman can save us when we’re facing crazed do-gooders who make war on drug heretics.

    In his book Ceremonial Chemistry, Dr Thomas Szasz noted that heresy is derived from the Greek word hairetikos which means able to choose. The drug heretic in this case allegedly chooses wrongly, at least according to twits like Patrick Kennedy, a man who can’t use legal pharmaceutical drugs successfully, much less smoke a benign weed without screwing up, feeling sorry for himself, turning himself into a professional victim, and seeking the leadership of the ONDCP. Patrick was the Congressman who crashed into a Capitol Hill barrier because he didn’t read the package insert on his Adderall that says don’t take this crap and drive your car.

    Then there was prohibitionist President George H. W. Bush whose most glaring failure as president was his precious war on drugs, one that included a concocted crack bust in front of the White House that he later used as a propaganda stunt in a major speech to the nation.

    The type of power a prohibitionist gains is power over the weak, the poor, the ignorant, the disenfranchised, all of whom get exploited mercilessly. No one other than someone who is utterly defenseless is likely to pay prohibitionists any mind, certainly no mindful person still possessing a modicum of self respect.

    Power over others is what Nietzsche called vulgar power. It was power over oneself that he encouraged, especially the power to go beyond any medieval-minded cult that might be standing in the way of true progress towards peace, harmony, and modern medical treatments. He hated the autocratic and authoritarian Germans, admired the Brits, and chose to live in Switzerland, a neutral country. He would not have liked Hitler, as Nietzsche’s idiotic fascist herd-minded sister claimed after her brother’s death. She promoted him to the Nazis for her own profit and prestige just like the swine she was. Nietzsche would have scoffed at drug and alcohol prohibitions as a manifestation of despots who scapegoat material substances merely to promote a theonomy—a hypothetical Christian form of government in which society is ruled by divine law—one that includes profiteers who endorse fatalistic solutions that justify human suffering as little more than punishment for one’s sins. Rejecting suffering becomes the equivalent of rejecting authority.

    It’s no accident that the majority of the non-religious, the non-church affiliated, the nones (nothing in particular), have largely written off support for the drug laws since time immemorial. Surveys and polls made this fact abundantly clear as early as the 1960s. The polling results may even have spurred a movement by the religious right to persecute illicit drug users en masse since a drug war was virtually guaranteed to turn up religious heretics or non-believers in the final body count. Religious heretics were construed as communists by 1920s Red Scare evangelists like Billy Sunday, who alleged the commie strategy for taking over the US to destroy capitalism was to undermine its religious values. Billy Sunday was an outfielder in baseball’s National League and the leading white Christian evangelist of his era. Evangelism made him a lot of money. He was very influential in promoting Prohibition and he’s credited for the role he played in bringing about the 18th Amendment in 1919 that prohibited alcohol.

    The commie plot belief never did fade away. It resurfaced time and again in political groups like the John Birch Society. Ultimately it’s not just black or brown people who get targeted in a drug war. Teenage rebels of any color who possess enough intellect to penetrate government anti-drug propaganda are also caught up in the tragedy of a forbidden fruit scam aimed at quelling rebellion that targets government corruption and deceit. Despots, authoritarians and oligarchs have many reasons to worship at the altar of the drug war.

    In the end game, anyone facing illicit drug charges in a sanctimonious small-town court room foisted upon them by incompetent bureaucrats teetering on the failure of empire must choose to select a jury made up of nones.

    The nones are compatriots who can form a jury of true peers. According to a recent Pew Poll, only 36 percent of the most religious of Americans favor both medicinal and recreational marijuana, while the least religious favor it by 76 percent. White evangelicals stood out as the major group opposing cannabis in all its forms. Not surprisingly, white evangelicalism has a chronic race problem that among other things helps make it the most disliked religious group in the US. There is a solution. When selecting a jury, just say none to prohibitionists.

  2. NorCalNative says:

    Interesting comment and analysis as always.

    Mom tried to get me to attend church regularly. Southern Baptist and Mormon attemps were made. Thought they were both batshit crazy.

    • Son of Sam Walton says:

      ‘The African Roots of Marijuana’ by Chris S. Duvall (Duke University Press) might shed some light on the use of religion by the rich and powerful. And this book also highlights how real-world data in Africa doesn’t correlate with previous histories/studies of the people in those regions since said studies were influenced by specific narratives controlled by Islam, Christianity, Colonialism, Slavery, World Wars, oil, Communism, India (South East Africa), etc. And the notion that Africa had long used cannabis as not only an intoxicant, but hemp farming as well. Whereas the Islamic/European world viewed eating hash as a delicacy due to the recipe and the time it took to make it, but below the Sahara, eating cannabis wasn’t practiced as much, but smoking it was, which was deemed ‘backwards’ by those who ate hashish.

  3. DdC says:

    Happy Holiday’s

  4. OT… ran across this tonite, from 1961, One Step Beyond: The Sacred Mushroom

  5. Servetus says:

    Anthrax toxin can block pain receptors in an animal study that points to alternatives to opioids in pain control:

    …”This molecular platform of using a bacterial toxin to deliver substances into neurons and modulate their function represents a new way to target pain-mediating neurons,” said study senior investigator Isaac Chiu, associate professor of immunology in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School.

    The need to expand the current therapeutic arsenal for pain management remains acute, the researchers said. Opioids remain the most effective pain medication, but they have dangerous side effects — most notably their ability to rewire the brain’s reward system, which makes them highly addictive, and their propensity to suppress breathing, which can be fatal.

    “There’s still a great clinical need for developing non-opioid pain therapies that are not addictive but that are effective in silencing pain,” said study first author Nicole Yang, HMS research fellow in immunology in the Chiu Lab. “Our experiments show that one strategy, at least experimentally, could be to specifically target pain neurons using this bacterial toxin.”

    The researchers caution, however, that for now, this approach remains purely experimental and still needs to be tested and further fine-tuned in more animal studies and, eventually, in humans. […]

    Science News: Can a dangerous microbe offer a new way to silence pain? Deadly anthrax toxin blocks multiple types of pain in mice, study shows Coinvestigators included Jörg Isensee, Dylan Neel, Andreza Quadros, Han-Xiong Bear Zhang, Justas Lauzadis, Sai Man Liu, Stephanie Shiers, Andreea Belu, Shilpa Palan, Sandra Marlin, Jacquie Maignel, Angela Kennedy-Curran, Victoria Tong, Mahtab Moayeri, Pascal Röderer, Anja Nitzsche, Mike Lu, Bradley Pentelute, Oliver Brüstle, Vineeta Tripathi, Keith Foster, Theodore Price, John Collier, Stephen Leppla, Michelino Puopolo, Bruce Bean, Thiago Cunha, and Tim Hucho.

  6. Servetus says:

    Psilocybin safety is demonstrated in a study at King’s College London:

    4-JAN-2022–The research…is an essential first step in demonstrating the safety and feasibility of psilocybin…for use within controlled settings alongside talking therapy as a potential treatment for a range of mental health conditions, including treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and PTSD.

    Current treatment options for these conditions are ineffective or partially effective for many people, resulting in a significant unmet need. Early research has indicated a potential for psilocybin therapy to treat these groups, but no trials have been undertaken at the scale needed for regulatory approval to make the therapy available.

    The trial is the first of its kind to thoroughly investigate the simultaneous administration of psilocybin. 89 healthy participants with no recent (within 1 year) use of psilocybin were recruited. 60 individuals were randomly picked to receive either a 10mg or 25mg dose of psilocybin in a controlled environment. In addition, all participants were provided with one-to-one support from trained psychotherapists. The remaining 29 participants acted as the control group and received a placebo, also with psychological support. […]

    The investigators have since completed Phase II of the study, which has explored the efficacy and safety of psilocybin in people living with TRD and PTSD, and are analysing the data. […]

    AAAS Public Science News Release: Psilocybin, in 10mg or 25mg doses, has no short- or long-term detrimental effects in healthy people

    Journal of Psychopharmacology: The effects of psilocybin on cognitive and emotional functions in healthy participants: Results from a phase 1, randomised, placebo-controlled trial involving simultaneous psilocybin administration and preparation
    James J Rucker, Lindsey Marwood, Riikka-Liisa J Ajantaival, Catherine Bird, Hans Eriksson, John Harrison, Molly Lennard-Jones, Sunil Mistry, Francesco Saldarini, Susan Stansfield, Sara J Tai, Sam Williams, Neil Weston, Ekaterina Malievskaia, Allan H Young.

  7. Son of Sam Walton says:

    Pfizer, Roche, AstraZeneca and J&J face newly revived lawsuit claiming they funded terrorism in Iraq

    https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/appeals-court-revives-lawsuit-against-pfizer-roche-astrazeneca-and-johnson-johnson-claims

  8. Servetus says:

    Hemp compounds can stop COVID-19 virus from entering human cells:

    11-JAN-2022 – Hemp compounds identified by Oregon State University research via a chemical screening technique invented at OSU show the ability to prevent the virus that causes COVID-19 from entering human cells. […]

    Van Breemen and collaborators, including scientists at Oregon Health & Science University, found that a pair of cannabinoid acids bind to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, blocking a critical step in the process the virus uses to infect people.

    The compounds are cannabigerolic acid, or CBGA, and cannabidiolic acid, CBDA, and the spike protein is the same drug target used in COVID-19 vaccines and antibody therapy. A drug target is any molecule critical to the process a disease follows, meaning its disruption can thwart infection or disease progression.

    “These cannabinoid acids are abundant in hemp and in many hemp extracts,” van Breemen said. “They are not controlled substances like THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, and have a good safety profile in humans. And our research showed the hemp compounds were equally effective against variants of SARS-CoV-2, including variant B.1.1.7, which was first detected in the United Kingdom, and variant B.1.351, first detected in South Africa.”

    Those two variants are also known the alpha and beta variant, respectively.

    Characterized by crown-like protrusions on its outer surface, SARS-CoV-2 features RNA strands that encode its four main structural proteins – spike, envelope, membrane and nucleocapsid – as well as 16 nonstructural proteins and several “accessory” proteins, van Breemen said.

    “Any part of the infection and replication cycle is a potential target for antiviral intervention, and the connection of the spike protein’s receptor binding domain to the human cell surface receptor ACE2 is a critical step in that cycle,” he said. “That means cell entry inhibitors, like the acids from hemp, could be used to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection and also to shorten infections by preventing virus particles from infecting human cells. They bind to the spike proteins so those proteins can’t bind to the ACE2 enzyme, which is abundant on the outer membrane of endothelial cells in the lungs and other organs.” […]

    AAAS Public Science News Release: Oregon State research shows hemp compounds prevent coronavirus from entering human cells

    Journal of Natural Products: Cannabinoids Block Cellular Entry of SARS-CoV-2 and the Emerging Variants; Richard B van Breemen, Ruth N Muchiri, Timothy A Bates, Jules B Weinstein, Hans C Leier, Scotland Farley, Fikadu G Tafesse.

  9. Servetus says:

    Delta 8 THC effects and its popularity are surveyed:

    12-JAN-2022–It’s everywhere from gas stations to grocery stores and trendy boutique shops, all advertising the availability of “delta-8-THC.” It’s a hemp-derived cousin of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — more commonly known as cannabis — the active ingredient in the cannabis plant that provides the “high” people feel after using it.

    And it’s the subject of a lot of debate and conversation in state legislatures, among public health practitioners and especially consumers, many of whom have turned to delta-8-THC to treat a broad range of health and medical conditions.

    Although it didn’t specifically address delta-8-THC, the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill effectively legalized it through a loophole that allowed the sale of hemp-derived delta-8-THC products in areas where recreational use of cannabis was prohibited, as well as where medicinal marijuana required medical authorization. By late 2020, delta-8-THC exploded in popularity. […]

    The Krugers partnered with Buffalo-based Bison Botanics, which used its social media channels to put out a call to delta-8-THC consumers to participate in a research survey the Krugers developed. Respondents were asked to compare their experiences with delta-8-THC vs. delta-9. […]

    In all, 521 people from 38 states — 29% from New York — participated in the survey. Here’s what they found:

    •About two-thirds said they consume delta-8-THC through
    edibles such as gummies.

    • Experiences with delta-8 were characterized predominantly by relaxation, pain relief and euphoria, with most participants saying they could perform their normal daily activities without experiencing the adverse side effects associated with cannabis use, such as paranoia, anxiety or the munchies.

    • 51% reported using delta-8-THC to treat a range of health and medical conditions, primarily anxiety or panic attacks, stress, depression or bipolar disorder and chronic pain.

    • 78% said they have not told their primary care provider that they use delta-8 because they lacked confidence in their physician’s ability to integrate medical cannabis into their treatment.

    • On average, participants’ experiences of paranoia and anxiety while using delta-8-THC were between “not at all” and “a little.”

    Participants also showed little knowledge on effective doses of delta-8 and said most of what they did know about it came from the internet or their own experiences.

    Delta-8 product users were more than enthusiastic to share their experiences, said Justin Schultz, Bison Botanics’ founder and president. “A lot of customers that use delta-8 are so happy with its therapeutic effects, and they’re worried it might be taken away. They want to do anything they can to help prevent that,” Schultz said. “We’re confident the state is taking this information seriously and is willing to adapt or build its legislation based on public feedback. They’re not ignoring our industry.” […]

    AAAS Public Science News Release: Largest study to date on delta-8-THC finds users say it’s delta-9’s ‘nicer younger sibling’–First-of-its-kind research involving industry partner comes at a time when many states are restricting delta-8-THC while legalizing the more potent delta-9

    Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research: Consumer Experiences with Delta-8-THC: Medical Use, Pharmaceutical Substitution, and Comparisons with Delta-9-THC

  10. Servetus says:

    A newly developed opioid molecule is safer for use in pain relief:

    …”We demonstrate that these compounds bind to a different site on the receptor than a typical opioid. Because of that, they seem to leave the receptor on and yet still receptive to endogenous opioids,” says Bohn, who chairs the Scripps Research Department of Molecular Medicine in Jupiter, Florida. “In neuropathy pain, we show they are far superior to morphine and oxycodone; moreover, SR-17018 does not decrease breathing.” […]

    Perhaps most importantly for people with severe chronic pain, SR-17018 showed an ability to provide sustained pain relief over time without development of tolerance, the problem of reduced efficacy over time that requires increased doses, increasing danger of overdose.

    The paper’s first author, Edward L. Stahl, notes that the new compounds are referred to as “biased agonists,” because they activate the mu opioid receptor in a way that preferentially engages one of its signaling pathways, the one that provides pain relief, over other pathways such as those that lead to suppressed breathing.

    “The compound SR-17018 is the first biased agonist of the mu opioid receptor that does not lead to tolerance with chronic use,” says Stahl, a senior staff scientist in the Bohn lab. “This is a desirable feature for potential use in the context of chronic, severe pain.”

    The new compounds were engineered to avoid the “beta-arrestin” signaling cascade that leads to opioids’ dangerous and unwanted traits, including respiratory suppression, a cause of overdose, and constipation, he adds. […]

    Science Daily News Release: Search for safer pain relief advances with new compounds; Chronic use of most opioids causes tolerance; new compounds avoid this and other unwanted qualities

    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: G protein signaling–biased mu opioid receptor agonists that produce sustained G protein activation are noncompetitive agonists; Edward L. Stahl, Cullen L. Schmid, Agnes Acevedo-Canabal, Cai Read, Travis W. Grim, Nicole M. Kennedy, Thomas D. Bannister, and Laura M. Bohn.

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